Darum werden wir mit Vollzeit Vanlife aufhören ∙ Life-Update

Today there is finally the long-awaited update video. What did we do last year, how are we doing now, what are our plans for the future and much, much more. Here we are again. After a year of YouTube break we are back. I have to say, it feels a bit strange. It feels very strange. So we're usually in front of the camera, but then in front of the cell phone. Yes, but we never put a tripod on and then the camera. Yes, with the microphone and everything, you can't even see what the backdrop looks like here. It's definitely unusual for us again, but we're happy to be back. YouTube was our baby back then, with which we started everything. And if you follow us on Instagram, you know what we did last year. So if you don't follow us there and always want to be up to date, it's best to follow us there too. And for everyone who is not on Instagram now, we can report again what we experienced last year. We went to France after the farewell video, that was in October of last year. We had a really nice time there, we still spent the autumn. We arrived in Spain at the end of October and then spent half of it in Spain and the other half in Morocco. And that was really adventurous, I would say. Morocco was adventurous, it was really nice. We were already in Morocco, but back then we flew there, had a rental car and it was just something completely different than traveling the country with a van on your own. Then we went to Ireland again after Morocco. We've been there for the third time by now. You saw it on YouTube once, we took you with us. Then we were there in the same year, but again in November. In Dublin we just did a city trip without a van. We just flew there for a few days and had a really cool time. And it was also a really nice Christmas mood. And then we spent the summer in Sweden. The beautiful Swedish summer, which somehow wasn't really there this year. We love Sweden, it's one of our favorite countries, but the weather didn't really play a role. Somehow we had really nice summer weather for the first three or four weeks. But after that it almost only rained and that wasn't so great anymore. Yes, so typically German we have to get excited about the weather. And that was all a nutshell of what we experienced. And as we already mentioned in the farewell video a year ago, I had to fight extreme psychological problems. Especially 2020 to 2021 was not an easy time for me and not for you either. Because it never only affects the person who is sick, but also those who experience it. It was definitely a very hard time. To explain that briefly, in the summer of 2020 it started with me that I felt very bad. And then a moderate depression was diagnosed. I was also in therapy and it didn't get any better. 2020 was hard, then came 2021, where it got even worse. And then in the winter of 2021 there was a fear disorder and a panic disorder. As if a depression wouldn't be enough. It definitely didn't get any better. Somehow we were both almost full. We both felt bad, it pulled us down extremely. And I have to say, it all tore me apart. We would also like to make a detailed video about it. But we will take our time for that. We want to prepare it properly. The video should be of more value. In the video we want to report about our time, how we perceived everything, how it came to that. And of course also use our reach to show that you can also pull something good from such phases in life, from such bad experiences, or that there is always a way out. But as I said, another time for that, because that would jump the frame and deserves its own video. At the moment we can say that we are both doing well. Much more important is that you are doing well. We both feel really, really good. And that just in advance. You don't have to worry about us at the moment. We are very grateful that we can say that right now. Because we learned that again in the last few years, that health is absolutely not self-evident. And we are really more than grateful to be at this point right now. So I have to say that my last panic attack was over a year ago. Far over a year, even a year and a half, I think. I haven't had depression for a long time now. I would say the last time was actually earlier this year. But I think that was also more hormonal. So cycle-related depression. It was only for a few days. And I'm knocking on wood that it stays that way. Of course you can never say that. That's why I always find it a bit difficult to say. We don't want to say that you're horny. But at the moment we are both doing well. I think you can say that in conclusion. That's the most important thing. What we learned in our YouTube house for us is the following. And I think that's important for you as a community and for us, for this channel. Because that's very important for this channel. Is that we no longer want to travel permanently. What does that mean now? As a travel channel, above all. We still love to travel. And we also plan to see a lot of the world. But we have realized for ourselves that we have to take a step down. The thing is this. We have been traveling almost constantly since 2017. There was a short break, for example when we were studying. But even there we were always on the road during the semester holidays and permanently. And the problem is, we can't keep up with the processing of all these experiences. And of course that sounds like a luxury problem and it is. It is also extremely privileged. In any case. But it is still something that concerns us. And if you travel from time to time, you may not be able to understand it that way. But with us it is like this. We have experienced and seen so much in the shortest time. Which is so nice, which we are so grateful for. But it is also reality. If you have seen the 100th beach, the 100th sight, then unfortunately it doesn't hit you as much as it did the first time. Or as it may be, if you have distances in between. For example, if you take your annual vacation twice a year, then every trip is probably the highlight. But if that's your everyday life and you see some highlights every day, then it just can't hit you as much. So that's how it is with us in any case, right? Yes. We want to get to places much more, be able to establish routines and not just be on the road all the time. And we can do that in places around the world where we are there longer. And then we also notice, because we have made the experience with it, that if you are on the road longer, you know how to appreciate things again. Because you don't experience so much every day, but you experience something every now and then and that's a highlight again. And that's exactly what we're doing with the van in Spain right now. When we shot the last YouTube video last year, we didn't do any sports. We were completely fed up with nutrition. We just ate everything we wanted and that was mostly unhealthy. We didn't have a good work-life balance. And above all, we had no structure and no routines at all. I have to say that this was also due to my mental health, which had a huge impact on both of us and pulled us down. But it wasn't because we did it like that before and then our mental health got worse. We already had routines before and so on. Then came my mental health and then we were able to establish routines again. At the time we shot the last YouTube video, I just weighed 94 kilos. And I've never weighed that much in my life. And when we arrived in Spain, we said, we have to change everything now. And that's why our vanlife has changed. We travel very differently now than we used to. We still travel, but completely differently. In the first vanlife we did, we were on the canals. We were in the UK, we were in Ireland, we were in Norway and Sweden. We saw so much in such a short time. We felt like we were in one place and the next day it went on. That was way too stressful for us. When we arrived in one place, we already planned the next trip. You couldn't really process what you're experiencing right now, because you were already thinking about the next trip. I think most people also do a vanlife like that. And that's totally fine. It's really cool when you experience something different every day. Then you want to get the best out of this year. You also have to say that for us, which may not be the case for others, we have been traveling since 2017. For many people we meet on the road, they have just started a trip for the first time in their life. And I think that's a different situation. When we did the world tour, I was just done with my graduate school, and we now have a completely different lifestyle. We can live from what we do. Yes, we still work a lot while traveling. We not only travel, but also work, so that the whole concept and our whole life has changed. And we had to reinvent ourselves. That's why we're doing different vanlife right now. For example, we are now in Spain. We have been here for two months. We have a real everyday life there. We have a structure, we have a routine. We go to the gym at least twice a week. We do our 10,000 steps every day. We have a nutrition plan. That's why we both lost weight. I lost more than 12 kilos and feel really good. You can weigh what you want. It is very important that you feel as good as you feel good. And that we don't feel uncomfortable from certain weights in our body. It has nothing to do with the visual, but rather that we have become so big that we are always sporty. And we miss it when we don't do certain things, when we don't eat healthy, when we are not sporty. To give a few examples from our second vanlife, what we do differently now. We have lived in one place for two months and have done nothing else. When we went back to Spain, we were in France for a month and lived there for a month. Now we are back in Spain and live here for two months. It's so good to be in one place. We hardly ever do sightseeing. When we do sightseeing, we consciously go to one place and take the whole day for it. Even filming with the camera is different now, because we don't experience something every day. We take the time to go on excursions and then process what we see on site. And create really nice memories. This other vanlife that we have discovered for ourselves, this completely slower journey. We are in one place with our van and we live there. This is our new vanlife, which is really good for both of us. What has completely changed for us in this new vanlife is that we have been standing on campsites for a long time. Before that, we always fought against going to campsites. I don't know if it was more of an ego thing. I think it's a social media phenomenon when you see people in cool places, in the middle of nature, etc. That's really nice. We still think it's nice. Currently, because we mainly work and have a real everyday life in the van and are not on a deck tour, we prefer to have reasonable internet. Because you rarely have free places. That we can empty our toilet reasonably. That we can shower all the time. That we can fill up water and don't always have to go on a day trip so that we can do such little things. Or that we have a shopping mall nearby. I think it used to be like that before. Free standing costs nothing. Maybe you wanted to save some money. But campsites can also be really cheap. They don't have to cost 30 euros a night. In France there are generally a lot of campsites. They only cost 10 to 15 euros a night. Especially if you book for a month, you get a discount. It can be really cheap and really great. What we did in the second year of Vanlife was that we took two trips. In two countries. Morocco and Ireland. Where we did a lot of sightseeing for professional reasons. And were on the road very quickly. We still went through our routines. That was super cool. We went to the gym twice a week. Even when we were in the Sahara in Merzouga. We went to the gym. Especially as a woman. Marie was often the only woman in the gym. But it worked. It stressed us out when we could go through the routines. Especially when we were in a place for two months. When we left the place, it was really painful. To be able to see the same people. It's different when you go to the bakery. You know the people at some point. It's good to see the same faces. And to be able to live out your habits. Because of this realization, we wish for a home. Who has been with us for a long time knows that we have the dream of our own tiny house since 2020. It has become even more crystallized over the years. We love to create something really cool in a small space. We saw that again during the van expansion. We really want to start this tiny house project in 2024. That would be the reason why we stop full-time vanlife. But that doesn't mean that we want to sell Maya. We love to live in here. That may sound a bit contradictory. We want to have the tiny house. But that would be the base for us. We want to have a place where we can arrive between our trips with Maya. Where we can come to rest. Where we don't have to process impressions. Where we can hang our souvenirs. We have so many beautiful souvenirs from all our trips. And we don't have the space to hang them in Maya. We don't have the space to unpack our stuff. Sometimes we travel to countries where it is colder. Where we need other things. And we have the same design in mind since 2020. And I don't think any of you can imagine how our tiny house will look like. Especially if you have seen tiny houses a few times. It's not a typical tiny house. A very cool design. And I think you will love it. Our plan for the tiny house is that it will be a base. A complement to Maya. Where we can stay as long as we want. And then we can leave again. And do another live. It could be 6 months that we spend in the tiny house. The other 6 months we are in Maya. We could spend 2 months in the tiny house. January to February we are in the tiny house. Then we travel for 3 months. Whenever we feel like it, we can come back. The question is, who is going to build the tiny house? We could build it ourselves. We would definitely dare to do that after we created Maya. But I also know how exhausting this topic was. It made me feel like a burnout. We are both perfectionists. You can't just give up. That's why we invested so many thoughts in Maya. And tried to think every step ahead. It was so exhausting. I think it would be even more exhausting with a tiny house. Although you have straight walls. You have a lot of angled corners. But still, a tiny house is much bigger than the van. That would be too exhausting for us. But you would probably have a great connection. We are both still a bit unscrupulous. We have such a strong connection to Maya. I could never just say we're selling it now. Before we go to sleep, I lie here every night. I look into the room again and think, wow, we just created that. I can't imagine that. We lie here in the evening and think, how did we do that? It looks so cool in here, we feel so comfortable. A lot has changed in the second year of vanlife. It has become a bit more livable in here. You may recognize that with the pictures or the plants. We feel really comfortable in here. What also speaks against it, which was different with vanlife, is that there are hardly any videos about how to build a tiny house. So we find. We looked a few times and didn't find videos with instructions. Which is of course something completely different with the vanlife topic. The alternative would logically be that a construction company builds the tiny house for us. For example, we were at the caravan fair this year in Düsseldorf. There were also tiny house exhibitors. Of course, we got informed immediately and talked to them. And I have to say honestly, not just because of the tiny house company, but also in general, what we have seen live so far, that we would have different fears there. Are we afraid that the quality would not convince us? Because, as we just mentioned, we are very perfectionistic. And I have to say, whenever we look at our vans, and we know that we gave 120,000% so that everything fits and nothing wobbles, and everything has top quality. But very often when we see finished vans from companies, we think we wouldn't like them. And they are partly more expensive than what we put in here. And the same is true of the tiny house. Even when we talked to people who had one built, they were not convinced either. And that's a bitter preference you have. I wanted to say, we have already seen new buildings, i.e. real houses that have been completely rebuilt. And the quality was not 1a either. Where cracks in the wall were and so on, where they were built and we think, I don't know. And then there is this tiny house company that we talked to personally. We usually had the feeling, we have a special design, that they didn't feel like implementing it at all. They just wanted us to implement their own designs. Which you can understand, because they do it in a continuous loop and then know what they are doing. And when we talked to them about our plans, we always had the feeling that they were not so solution-oriented. If we build a tiny house with someone, then we would like it to be someone who is solution-oriented. That's how we approach everything. And we had the feeling that they were all people who were looking for problems and always had this mentality that everything doesn't work, instead of thinking about how it would work. We already know how big our tiny house should be, how high it should be, how wide it should be and how long it should be and what it will look like from the inside. And that's all fixed. We are only looking for someone who will implement it in the same way. We don't want to make any compromises, we don't want to do it differently, we want to have it exactly like that. And it can also be implemented according to the legal requirements. But we need someone who does it. As you can see, there is a lot going on in our head. And we have decided to spend this winter with it, to plan this tiny house thing for us so that we can implement it next year. So who builds it, then to make a decision. And to get in touch with other manufacturers. So if you know anyone or even one, feel free to contact us. And also to think about where and ... The topic of the property is a completely different story. Yes, we just said that we actually wanted to include it in the video. We'll store that. That will jump over the frame, exactly. How will this continue on this channel? We definitely have some really cool videos planned. Like a van tour after two years, for example. Because a lot has changed here and we definitely want to update you. But we also planned another video where we would need your input again. So we want to make an update video. What has broken down here after two years? Because a lot has broken down. And some things didn't work as well as we imagined. Materials were maybe not as good as we thought. Some things work amazingly well. And we just want to make an update video. And maybe you have any suggestions or questions that we can include. Then feel free to write them in the comments below. I think that will be a very cool video that some of you can look forward to. And of course we will also take you completely with us on the topic of Tiny House. So we want to take you with us from start to finish. You should be able to experience everything that we experience. Every struggle that we are already facing and that we will continue to face. It's going to be an exciting time and I'm looking forward to experiencing it as a community. As you can see, this update video has become very long. We had a lot to tell. We are happy to be back. And especially when it comes to the topic of Tiny House, we are looking forward to the exchange with you in the comments. So if you have any questions or experience, some of you will definitely see this video, who have already made their own experience. Feel free to write us in the comments. And that's it with this video. Until next time. See you in the comments. Take care. See you soon. Ciao.